Physical backup to VM restore - change destination drive?

J

Justin Clark

started a topic
9 days ago

Tried the Altaro physical server backup today. Seems to work great. However, in my case when I restore the physical server's backup to a VM on a Hyper-V host, I cannot choose the destination volume. It defaults to C:\AltaroRestore and I can't change it. Seems odd, as most real world servers have small boot volumes (typically C:) and large data volumes. In any case, this is a bit of a deal breaker.

I worked around it longhand by restoring to VHD files, then attaching those to a newly created VM on the Hyper-V host. It worked, but it's a pain.

I don't think many people will be able to blindly restore into the C: drive on their Hyper-V hosts.

Am I missing something? Is there a secret way to change the destination?

Best Answer

M

Matt
said
9 days ago

Actually you can indeed select which volume you wish to restore the files to:

Justin Clark

said
9 days ago

OK, I need a vacation. I did not attempt totype ina new path. The icon next to the field looks so much like an action button that would prompt for the destination, yet clicking it does nothing.... I convinced myself the path could not be changed.

File this under the "obvious, but not intuitive" category. Hopefully this conversation will help somebody else who, like me, can't see the forest through the trees at the end of a busy day!

Thanks!

Matt

said
9 days ago

Haha thanks for the giggle, and I hope you plan that vacation soon :)

I will actually pass this on and see if we can make it more obvious though, as others might make the same mistake.

Thanks for the feedback!

J

Justin Clark

said
9 days ago

Thanks Matt. On the topic of feedback, I had one more thought if you'll indulge me. In my case, I'm backing the physical box up to extra capacity on the disk array attached to my Hyper-V host. This is mostly because it's nearby, convenient, and at this point I'm just testing and preparing for the real conversion.

However, I'm realizing it would be incredibly convenient, and much faster, if Altaro VM Backup on the Hyper-V host could import the physical server's backup directly, and create the VM itself. In mixed environments or environments like mine who are in (slow) transition, this would be a great feature, especially if the physical box fails and you need a fast recovery. Consider that if the physical box has hardware issues, you've lost your ability to perform the "restore as a VM" and you're stuck scrambling to find a way to get those backups converted to VM in a hurry.

Maybe there's a clever way to do this that I haven't found yet. It seems like a common scenario.

Thanks for a great suite of products. I'm super impressed with the software and the support.